Honesty and dedicated work are to two key components of operations that can take PNG forward. It will take effort and commitment of everyone.

Honesty and dedicated work. These two terms when operationalized by all of us can take our country, Papua New Guinea, to the best position it can be as a modern nation.

Look at Japan. It is a nation from the “global south” geo-political region of the world like us. Yet, Japan is equal with the “global north” of the developed western world.

Why has this been so? Among the bottom line in Japan’s success is its people’s honestly and dedicated work in whatever they have done and do as citizens of this nation of several islands.

Notice that I did not use the term “hard work” but “dedicated work”. Hard work, carries negative connotations of punitive work at the expense of the rights and liberties of individual people. I’d rather use the term “dedicated work’ as being more reflective of what citizens can and must do consciously to enable their families, communities, districts, provinces and the nation as a whole to realise their potential and succeed.

In countries like Japan what may be viewed as “hard work” is essentially dedicated work that Japanese people do to ensure someone does whatever work at hand to his or her best abilities to realise the best possible result.

To a child in Japan committing school work with the intention to succeed is not “hard work”. For the Japanese child, it is part of life they grow up with and it is how things are done in his or her society.

Mediocrity or failure is not part of the Japanese equation.

Like Japan, countries that have succeeded in the socio-economic development endeavours in Europe, Asia and elsewhere tended to have the two ingredients I am highlighting today – honesty and dedicated work.

If you are honest in the first place, that is half the work done in the success story line. When someone is honest with himself or herself in life, chances are that such a person will be willing and able to consciously commit adequate amount of time and work to studies as a student. Likewise, such an honest person can do the same with work, business and other engagements in life.

When all of us PNG citizens, from school-aged children to able-bodied adults, were honest each day and went about doing our business in school and all manner of genuine work with honesty and dedication, you can imagine the transformative effect of it.

Corruption and mismanagement that we bitterly criticize regularly as being prevalent in our nation are outward signs of people not being honest and not willing to engage in dedicated work in the first place.

The term “short-cut” comes to mind here. There are many people in our midst who would rather take a short-cut to get whatever they want, whether it be a government contract or payment of service. There are indeed those in our midst who would take short-cuts than be honest enough to be patient and follow the processes, policies and laws to achieve whatever they may be legally entitled.

Corruption and mismanagement are the absence of honesty and dedicated work – it is as straightforward as that.

If people are honest and are involved in dedicated work, there would be absolutely no reason for engaging in corrupt activities and mismanagement of money and resources that is in someone’s custody for the common good. This is where our public officials in politics and bureaucracy continue to be tested. The news reports recently of alleged financial abuses in the National Capital District Health Authority falls in this domain.

When I discuss governance, leadership and management of our country, I cannot go on without linking the conversation with the national election process. I’ve said this before that the manner in which we approach elections, determines just about everything else in terms of public policy implementation, national development, respect for the rule of law and set procedures.

If unlawful activities determine political outcomes and if politicians who get elected would prioritise on their election benefactors and voters, chances are that common good will be sacrificed. This has happened and is the hallmark of our politics, leadership and governance, even as I write today. This is where our nation collectively sacrifices honesty and dedicated work.

Evidence of such rears its head through false claims and appointment of lesser qualified people through the ‘whom you know’ approach. There are school drop-outs, failed business people and failed politicians that tend to crowd around or follow serving politicians. Soon, these individuals are favoured for appointments in public offices at the bureaucracy and board levels.

If we take a stock of who is appointed after a government takes office, chances are that many of the appointees would be failures in education, employment, business and politics with their only winning ‘qualification’ being knowing the political figure in power.

The ripple effect of this is that there is now a growing army of young Papua New Guineans who feel that money, resources and opportunities are in following and barracking for those in political power or seeking mandate for political office. The time-tested concept of earning an honest living and succeeding in life through honesty and dedicated work is left in its wake.

Our relatives in our indigenous Melanesian villages were people whose lives were built around honest and dedicated work to sustain their livelihoods and keep the family, clan and tribe functioning into the future. We, PNG Melanesians alive now are here because of the honest and dedicate work that our parents, grandparents and ancestors led throughout the years. We must go back there.

We must trace our footprints and roots back to these important character traits of honesty and dedicated work of our fore-parents. When we do rediscover this, we will do a great deal better to improve our country from its present quagmire. It is not the millions of kina from the petrol and mineral extraction nor the loans from IMF and China that will ensure socio-economic liberalization of our country and its people.

Honesty and dedicated work are key!

END.